We woke up bright-eyed this morning in Gatlinburg and decided to take a hike to the top of Clingmans Dome. Well, most of us did, anyway. Henry and Max were tired and didn't feel like going, so they stayed behind and played video games and enjoyed the hot tub at the (really, really awesome gigantic) cabin. But Mike, Liam, and I went, along with Kent, Popi, Maria, Matt, Katie, Kelsey, Jimmy, and Janis. The path was pretty steep, and the elevation was high, so it was kind of hard going, but the path was also paved and there were benches all along the way that Kent and I took full advantage of. (We were the stragglers, which was just fine with us.) Clingmans Dome is the highest point in Tennessee (6,643 feet), and once you get to the top, they torture you just a little bit more by making you climb a ramp up to the observation tower. But the views from the top, as expected, were incredible. We went first thing in the morning, and it was a good thing, too. When we got there, we had no trouble finding a parking space, but by the time we came back down, there was a huge line of people waiting for spaces. It was kind of a zoo.
On the way back, we stopped at a random little stream and did some exploring, and in some ways, I liked this part better. Because it wasn't a marked area or anything, we had that sense of discovering something for ourselves.
After that little break, we got stuck in a traffic jam because there was a bear on the side of the road! Very exciting. I gave Kent my camera and he got a few shots as the park ranger waved us on by (the traffic jam was caused by people stopping to take pictures, so they were trying to get everything moving again).
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